Welcome to an epic episode of Nerds Without Pants that’s sure to hit you square in the feels. Seriously, this one gets heavy, but thankfully there is plenty of fantastic music to see us through thanks to you, our lovely listeners!

Welcome back to a traditional episode of Nerds Without Pants…FINALLY! We’re back at it this week, with all your favorite segments: Stage Select, Consumption Junction, and Chrono Crossing. We even have all three Pantsless Ones on this show, so let’s get into it, shall we?

And we’re back! The E3 schedule has really thrown off the Nerds Without Pants, and this isn’t a normal show format. No, this is an all Consumption Junction edition of the podcast. We’re a man (bot?) down, since Angelo isn’t here, so Julian and Patrick get together to talk about…a lot of old games, actually.

As much as I loved Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, I was skeptical when another game, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia, was announced to be released this year. While I’m happy to see this franchise finally gain some much-needed popularity outside of Japan, I’m not sure if I want to see the series become annualized. I have yet to play through the other two campaigns for last year’s game, and after spending over 40 hours with Echoes I might be good for a while. Or then again, I might be just as addicted as I was last year.

It’s no secret to the people at PixlBit that I am a huge fan of the Saints Row series. The last two games are among my favorite games from the last generation, and I eagerly await the next chapter in the increasingly bonkers tale of the Third Street Saints. In the interim, I am certainly interested in Agents of Mayhem, a spinoff of Saints Row that seeks to blend the over the top humor and gameplay from that franchise with the character and special powers of squad based shooters like Overwatch. After playing the game at E3 I am still interested, but I also have some concerns.

I got into Dragon Ball Z at the age of 15 thanks to some bootleg VHS tapes I found at a collector’s show in town. I was hooked right away, and as someone who was already obsessed with fighting games I would often dream of Capcom developing a DBZ game. Instead of that happening, I had to contend with sluggish, unresponsive Dragon Ball fighters that ranged from terrible to decent, but failed to capture the magic of the anime in total. Now we have the upcoming Dragon Ball FighterZ from Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works, and if my time with the game at E3 is any indication, my dream is finally going to come true.

One of the stand out games for me at the Microsoft E3 press conference was a unique little indie game called The Artful Escape. The papercraft graphics and emphasis on jamming on an electric guitar made me think of some heady melding of Gitaroo Man from the PlayStation 2 and last generation’s indie darling Journey. I knew it was one to watch, and I was happy to be able to try it out on the show floor.

Hey, it’s a Nerds Without Pants spoiler cast! We’ve only done two of these before (for The Last of Us and Batman: Arkham Knight if you’re wondering), but The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild is certainly deserving of its own episode. So that’s what we did.

I have very limited experience with the Valkyria series outside a bit with the second entry I mostly forgot about. I know past titles were turn based strategy that has to player take control of each soldier individually, where it controls more like a shooter. And I can say that Valkyria Revolution is nothing like that, instead going for an action RPG approach while still trying to hold onto its identity.

Welcome to our next (an likely final) special from E3 2017! Angelo steps out of the woods and hasn't heard a speck of E3 news, so the bulk of the show is Julian filling him in on everything he's missed. Enjoy the hilarity as Angelo reacts in real time to the Xbox One X, that odd Shadow of the Colossus remake, and the announcement of not one, but two new Metroid games.